Starting on the Van Injection Project and Propane Tank Installation

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, Guerneville, CA.

My Injection kit came in for the van.

When I got up this morning, I was headed out to the gate to open it just in case the delivery man wanted to come a bit early with my injection kit package. Out the front door, and wait a minute, what’s that cardboard box on the poach? That wasn’t there yesterday and I didn’t’ hear the delivery person? Hummmmmmmm,  great, my injection kit has arrived and now I can start figuring out exactly what I need to do to install it. I sure like the fast delivery service we can get these days.

I was debating on kayaking today, between the rain storms, but luckily, I didn’t make it and that was good, because this afternoon it really dumped rain here and I would of got a little wet. As it was, I got some work done instead.

Prepping for the propane tank installation.

I received my new, under the van, propane tank the other day too, so I started with that, as I had to make a bracket to help hold it up. I had cut a trap door in the floor of the van awhile ago, but decided I couldn’t use it, because I installed all the shelves above and also didn’t’ need the space after installing all the side wall cabinets. But that presented a problem for the propane tank install, as it was a heavy tank and would be even heavier when filled, so the van mount had to be real strong. That meant I was going to have to make some kind of bracket to beef up the mount area, so that’s what I started with, some cutting and drilling a welding got that built, even as it rained a little. I even painted it and brought it into the house to dry, so that was all I could do on that part of the project today.

Below, you can see the under the van propane tank I’m installing. It fits real good, like it was built for the van and probably was as this old van is one of the first and maybe it was the first to receive one of these type tanks. At any rate, it has to go up under there, most of it will be out of sight.

Prepping the van for the injection kit.

I took the van engine cover off to make the injector project easier to do. I have to take the carburetor and manifold off on the left and replace them with the injector stuff. There’s also a bunch of wires, senders and relays to install to make it all work, oh and a computer too, under the drivers seat. Now that I have it opened up, I can lay the wiring harness in there and get an idea of what I will have to do to install this baby.

Also getting ready to install the new Wave3 Propane heater.

As long as I was putting in the new propane tank, I also got a new propane heater called a Wave3. While I was out on my last desert trip, I used the round heater you can also see in the picture. It worked rather well, without it I would have been real cold, so I thought it was a good time to get something, hopefully better. Of course, this heater has to be hooked up just right too and a place to put it for use and storage. I’ll use it on top of the stove, as there isn’t much room in a van to have a hot fire safely. I also have a little twelve volt fan that I use in conjunction with the heater to keep the heat circulating and get it in all the corners. You might say, this little unit is my modern day campfire. It keeps me cozy, but sure doesn’t have the same ambiance as a camp fire.

That’s it below, the square thing. The round thing is my older one. I think the newer one is in a better package/box for the van, than the older one. The older one was really made to mount on top of a propane bottle.

The paint finally dried on my tank bracket I made, but it was raining and got dark too, so tomorrow, maybe I’ll see what else I can accomplish on this project.